The amount of people in this thread that are arguing that steam is fully within the right here due to the fact that they have a restriction on steam key pricing blows my mind.
for example with the UbiSoft case, It’s clear they have never actually opened or used Uplay because if they had they would realize that Uplay does not use Steam keys period at all. They are their own distribution platform that distributes off of uplay servers.
The entire point of the lawsuits is going one step further, which is that despite steam having a policy that says it’s for keys only, they unilaterally enforce it on all platforms regardless of the usage of the keys.
Now whether that’s actually true or not is what the lawsuits have to determine. But that is what the claim is. Personally I’m leaning towards it’s true because I’ve seen some screenshots posted about customer service saying that’s how it worked and threatening to delist steam games for cheaper first party distribution pricing elsewhere.
The issue with the Ubisoft case was that Ubisoft offered R6S in a free, restricted mode and a full mode. However, Ubisoft allowed you to obtain the free version from Steam (distributed by Steam servers) but offered a cheaper way to access the full game on Uplay only.
So you could get the full game, distributed by Steam without spending a penny on Steam, as long as you purchase it on Uplay. That’s just Ubisoft trying to dodge Steam’s policy prohibiting cheaper access to Steam distributed games on other storefronts.
It’s kinda like you providing a free game on Steam, but upon opening it you have to enter your credit card details first in order to access the rest of the game. You’re just using Steam’s services for free at that point, and that is obviously dodging the policy.
I wouldn’t classify that as dodging steam policy at that point. There is no product to parity. The 15$ starter pack wasn’t offered on steam during the exclusivity period. The actual wording for the price parity rule is You should use Steam Keys to sell your game on other stores in a similar way to how you sell your game on Steam. It is important that you don’t give Steam customers a worse deal than Steam Key purchasers.. If there is no steam key to parity with, then it’s not in violation of the policy. They were using the terms given to them by steam, and steam didn’t like that and allegedly threatened to delist all of their r6s products if they didn’t provide the same product on steam. That’s blatant monopolistic behavior in my eyes, especially considering that uplay variants of the game steam has no part in. Steam has no listings that you must sell products on both platforms, they do have a rule that states if there is one on both, you must give steam key purchasers an equivalent or better deal. On items that can use steam wallet/items that are on both platforms they do price parity it seems, but I have to disagree with it obviously dodging the policy.
Also for your analogy sake, it’s important to add that r6s wasn’t free to play at the time of this complaint. Free to play wasn’t even a thing for the game until mid 2025. While no date was provided, its safe to say these complaints are from at least 2017 (which also coincides with the year provided with the other company complaint) since that’s when the starter pack bundle was made to be a uplay exclusive without it being on steam, but this was back when the game was p2p instead of f2p. The 15$ starter pack included the game, a couple operators and some ingame currency, and if memory serves right, in buying it you would need to download and install it via uplay. Since it was a uplay product key and they lacked cross-progression during that time span.
It’s interesting though because if I have my game listed on Steam and then have my game listed on GOG for the same price technically the version on GOG is more expensive because they don’t take a 30% cut. So developers could still list their games on both platforms and not get in trouble with valve and still make a profit from listing it on other platforms. I know uplay does take a cut but presumably they don’t care to cut off their own profits.
The amount of people in this thread that are arguing that steam is fully within the right here due to the fact that they have a restriction on steam key pricing blows my mind.
for example with the UbiSoft case, It’s clear they have never actually opened or used Uplay because if they had they would realize that Uplay does not use Steam keys period at all. They are their own distribution platform that distributes off of uplay servers.
The entire point of the lawsuits is going one step further, which is that despite steam having a policy that says it’s for keys only, they unilaterally enforce it on all platforms regardless of the usage of the keys.
Now whether that’s actually true or not is what the lawsuits have to determine. But that is what the claim is. Personally I’m leaning towards it’s true because I’ve seen some screenshots posted about customer service saying that’s how it worked and threatening to delist steam games for cheaper first party distribution pricing elsewhere.
I’ll be curious where these cases go.
The issue with the Ubisoft case was that Ubisoft offered R6S in a free, restricted mode and a full mode. However, Ubisoft allowed you to obtain the free version from Steam (distributed by Steam servers) but offered a cheaper way to access the full game on Uplay only.
So you could get the full game, distributed by Steam without spending a penny on Steam, as long as you purchase it on Uplay. That’s just Ubisoft trying to dodge Steam’s policy prohibiting cheaper access to Steam distributed games on other storefronts.
It’s kinda like you providing a free game on Steam, but upon opening it you have to enter your credit card details first in order to access the rest of the game. You’re just using Steam’s services for free at that point, and that is obviously dodging the policy.
I wouldn’t classify that as dodging steam policy at that point. There is no product to parity. The 15$ starter pack wasn’t offered on steam during the exclusivity period. The actual wording for the price parity rule is
You should use Steam Keys to sell your game on other stores in a similar way to how you sell your game on Steam. It is important that you don’t give Steam customers a worse deal than Steam Key purchasers.. If there is no steam key to parity with, then it’s not in violation of the policy. They were using the terms given to them by steam, and steam didn’t like that and allegedly threatened to delist all of their r6s products if they didn’t provide the same product on steam. That’s blatant monopolistic behavior in my eyes, especially considering that uplay variants of the game steam has no part in. Steam has no listings that you must sell products on both platforms, they do have a rule that states if there is one on both, you must give steam key purchasers an equivalent or better deal. On items that can use steam wallet/items that are on both platforms they do price parity it seems, but I have to disagree with it obviously dodging the policy.Also for your analogy sake, it’s important to add that r6s wasn’t free to play at the time of this complaint. Free to play wasn’t even a thing for the game until mid 2025. While no date was provided, its safe to say these complaints are from at least 2017 (which also coincides with the year provided with the other company complaint) since that’s when the starter pack bundle was made to be a uplay exclusive without it being on steam, but this was back when the game was p2p instead of f2p. The 15$ starter pack included the game, a couple operators and some ingame currency, and if memory serves right, in buying it you would need to download and install it via uplay. Since it was a uplay product key and they lacked cross-progression during that time span.
Spot on, this is literally the whole lawsuit. Quite boring and a very easy fix when decided.
It’s interesting though because if I have my game listed on Steam and then have my game listed on GOG for the same price technically the version on GOG is more expensive because they don’t take a 30% cut. So developers could still list their games on both platforms and not get in trouble with valve and still make a profit from listing it on other platforms. I know uplay does take a cut but presumably they don’t care to cut off their own profits.